


Red Like Communist China

by hitamyujr



Category: GOT7
Genre: Alternate Universe - School, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Colors, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 14:11:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16265849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitamyujr/pseuds/hitamyujr
Summary: Jinyoung starts seeing colors when he meets Jackson.





	Red Like Communist China

Jinyoung starts seeing colors when he meets Jackson. He doesn’t even understand it at first because the snow behind his window is white and his school uniform is black and his pencil is grey. But then he blinks and stares and blinks again so his brain finally grasps the fact that his pencil is actually green. The words are grey, but the pencil itself is very very green. 

“Holy shit”, his brain exclaims at him right away. Jinyoung wants to repeat after him shouting the same stuff out loud but he has some sense. The teacher probably wouldn’t appreciate it even if it was his way to express all the emotions he got while reading about Lee Soonsin’s great achievements.

The teacher’s suit is dark blue by the way, and history textbook has a blindingly colorful cover. Jackson’s backpack (that falls extremely close to Jinyoung’s foot when Jackson accidentally hits it in the corner) is red. Like Communist China, Jinyoung thinks in complete awe. That’s funny though how almost everyone has no idea what exactly red looks like but everyone knows that Communism is red. Magic.

Jinyoung misses the first chance to scream about him finally discovering colors, and then he calms down quite quickly. He is already completely calm when the lesson ends except he can’t help it but stare at Jackson.

He must have started to see colors too. Jackson probably didn’t even know that his backpack was the same color as his country’s flag. Or did? Lots of shops put color names in the description anyway because it’s not like most people don’t see them. There are plenty who do. One of Jinyoung’s sisters (The Annoying One) has been seeing colors since she can’t remember when: apparently her soulmate was in her kindergarten group, the small problem is she doesn’t know up to this age who exactly it was as they all met each other plus each other’s families plus hella lot of teachers and staff at once. It’s only fair that you don’t lose colors when the soulmate walks away from you life, right? It would be weird to go back to greyscale vision just because someone decided to move to another country or even their parents decided for them. Like Jackson’s for example. Surely it’s a good thing for Jinyoung that they decided this way but Jackson could have a Chinese soulmate among his classmates in Communist (red!) China. No, it is completely fair and logical that there is no requirement to spend your whole life together.

Jinyoung wouldn’t mind thouhg. Spending his whole life with Jackson seems as a great idea.

“Are you in fucking love?”, Jaebum asks when they sit on children’s swing at the playground. Surely not, Jinyoung thinks and that’s what he says to Jaebum to make him stop looking disgusted at the very idea. Jaebum is going through his non-conformist phase when he declines everything considered valuable. He declines colors, too.

Jinyoung likes to think that he is smarter because he declines only useless things. He is actually in love - just not with Jackson, totally not with him, he is in love with someone else and now he even knows that this person wears a /really/ grey soft sweater. It doesn’t just look grey because of Jinyoung’s vision, it is grey for real like the words coming from under his pencil.

But he likes Jackson too, he likes Jackson a lot. Not in the romantic way, but that can’t make Jinyoung’s fondness of Jackson anywhere less important. He likes Jackson in wanting-to-spend-time-together way instead and he is always happy when Jackson shows that he enjoys spending time with Jinyoung too. Jaebum can be jealous all the ways he wants to, anyway he knows well that Jinyoung loves spending time with him too. It’s not like if Jinyoung doesn’t mind spending his whole life with Jackson that he is ready to spend his whole life without Jaebum. Jaebum isn’t allowed to leave, Jinyoung didn’t call him hyung since their first sandcastle built on this very playground for Jaebum to stop being his friend.

There is only one stupid problem which keeps eating Jinyoung from the inside at random occasions.

He never told Jackson that they were soulmates. Jackson never told him anything about that either. Of course they can keep being wonderful their whole life without that talk but it itches Jinyoung still. Sometimes. Not much. Like a mosquito bite. Mosquitos are very annoying, ask Dowoon from the 6th grade.

At first Jinyoung tried to convince himself that maybe it’s not even Jackson. Maybe it was someone who rode the same bus Jinyoung took to school and he just didn’t notice that the bus was light green when he stepped down. He is slow at times, Jaebum can give billions of proofs (Jaebum is slower though and Jinyoung has more proofs). It could be someone on the street. There could be someone new at the convenience store where Jinyoung bought his regular coffee milk.

Jinyoung pretty quickly concluded that all of this sounded extremely stupid, like he almost didn’t want Jackson to be his soulmate. He didn’t not want it and his first colors occurred to him right after the teacher introduced Jackson Wang to the class and said that he had transferred from China. This Jackson Wang from China is his soulmate for sure, Jinyoung likes it that way so convincing himself about some other shit was pointless.

Instead he figures out why Jackson never brought this up. Unfortunately Jackson brings this up at lunch after the class when Jinyoung figured it out so it looks like Jackson just tells him himself and Jinyoung couldn’t get any credit for being logical or having great empathy, you choose. No credit anyway.

“I got colors on my first day here”, Jackson says and proudly points at the carrots in his bibimbap. “Orange”.

“I have colors too”, Jinyoung says as fast as possible so that Jackson doesn’t feel too important and special. Jackson sulks for a moment but then continues his thought:

“It must be someone here but I have no clue who it is”.

That’s it. It is the same situation as Jinyoung’s sister’s for Jackson. He started seeing colors on his first day at new school and god knows how many people he met. Jinyoung met only Jackson, he knew before every other damn person he spoke to at school on that day. But Jackson definitely had to welcome lots and lots of people into his life. Especially when we have to take into consideration how Jackson is a social butterfly.

“What if it’s the principal?”

“It’s me”, Jinyoung says almost out of pity when he sees the genuine horror in Jackson’s eyes. Nobody wants to be soulmates with their principal even if soulmates don’t have to spend their lives together. Jackson doesn’t give any reaction though. He doesn’t even exclaim “AT LEAST BETTER THAN THE PRINCIPAL! BLESSED!”.

“It’s me”, Jinyoung repeats awkwardly and Jackson’s spoon falls on the floor so he doesn’t have anything to help him finish his bibimbap now. “I got colors after you entered the classroom. I looked at my pencil and it was green”.

“How did you know it was green if you never saw green before?”, Jackson asks suspiciously. Jinyoung rolls his eyes at the (white with yellow stains) ceiling which gives Jackson just enough time to steal his spoon. Well, Jinyoung is indeed blessed that Jackson can’t steal his spicy food at least.

“Study”, Jinyoung shrugs. “Books, talks, imagination. I just knew”.

Jackson tells him about his head hurt for the first several days and how he had to learn the colors’ names in three languages at the same time. Nothing feels different now that they expressed verbally that they are each other’s soulmates. Maybe Jinyoung needs to live for a couple of weeks without any itching and without any big secrets from Jackson to actually feel the difference. He knows it won’t be a bad feeling.

“What’s your favorite color?”, Jackson asks.

“Red”, Jinyoung answers immediately. “It always was, even before I found out that it looks like your backpack. I am a Marxist”.

“You are thirteen”. Jackson looks like he wants to tease so much but is that much at the loss of words because of the reason to tease that he can’t even do it properly.

“Marxism has no age discrimination”, Jinyoung answers. “And I am thirteen and a half”.


End file.
